Best of Peter Rhodes - Dec 4

The best of this week's Peter Rhodes column from the Express & Star.

ANOTHER quick peek at the history exam:

Q. Name the wife of Orpheus whom he tried to rescue from the Underworld.

A. Mrs Orpheus.

I WAS chatting to an old sailor who lamented the spread of Civil Service language into the job. On British research ships, the person in charge goes under the rather mundane title of "principal scientist". The Dutch go for the far more stirring "expedition leader". But best of all is the German job description. They call their top man the "voyage leader" which in German is Fahrtleiter and is pronounced exactly as you would hope. What a great language.

"I THINK we will always cope, whatever the population is". Alan Johnson this week, on the prospect of the UK population hitting 70 million. Not so much a Home Secretary as a Hope Secretary.

'TIS the season to be mangled. A reader sends me the Royal Mail envelope which contained the remains of a Christmas card and the explanation: "We are sorry that the enclosed item sent from abroad and addressed to you was received damaged by Royal Mail at the point of entry into the UK." It came from Blackpool.

A QUIET anniversary has come and gone at Chateau Rhodes. The big, one-eared, bent-tailed tabby cat which wandered in a year ago is still with us. I am not a cat person. Can anyone explain why a ferociously efficient predator which hunts, kills and devours dozens of rabbits is quite unable to open a pouch of Whiskas?

A NEW documentary, And Did Those Feet, suggests that Jesus may have visited Glastonbury and Cornwall. A reader emails excitedly: "Did he see the Eden Project?"

STILL more from that history exam:

"In midevil times most people were alliterate."

IF WE are to believe one account this week, the infamous claim that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes came from an Iraqi taxi driver. Now, that's what you call a tip.

UPRIGHT Burials is a company whose name explains everything. It is based in Melbourne and is offering Australians the chance to be buried standing up in a body bag instead of lying down in the traditional horizontal coffin. On the headstone, RIP will presumably be replaced with SIP.

UNSURPRISINGLY, it is now estimated that the swine-flu call centres staffed by untrained volunteers have misdiagnosed tens of thousands of cases. It gets worse. A reader reports that he has now been diagnosed with gammon flu. It started as swine flu but then he was cured.

A DAILY Telegraph reader asks how long it will be before climate-change denial is made a criminal offence. Sooner than we think, I fear. Britain's robust view of free speech is not widely shared on the continent. Holocaust denial is already against the law in France and Germany. A ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2000, which supported the sacking of an EU economist who wrote a book denouncing EU policy, seemed to suggest that criticism of the EU, like criticism of ye olde Church, may be a crime like blasphemy. It took a statement in the House of Lords by Baroness Scotland to "reassure the noble Lord that it is not blasphemous". Frankly, I am not reassured. If the climate-change zealots take over, the Inquisition will not be far behind.

IN THE continuing game of I'm a Sillier Copper Than You Are, a PCSO prevented a cameraman from photographing St Paul's Cathedral and seemed surprised when he objected. Apparently, she had been telling trippers to stop snapping all afternoon and no-one else had complained. Only in this country could we devise an anti-terror law which assumes that the correct response to a suspected terrorist with a camera is to ask him to stop taking photographs.

THE really irritating part about such incidents is that if you took the same photos while wearing a burkha and big boots, the cops would just smile politely. Ethnic awareness, innit?

A FANTASIST seen wearing an impossible array of medals at a Remembrance Day parade has been exposed as Roger Day, from Earl Shilton, Leicestershire. Doorstepped by a reporter, Day who claims to have fought with the SAS, insisted they were all 'pukka' medals but he couldn't say too much because of the Official Secrets Act. Look, Trooper Day, your cover's been blown. Do the decent thing. Swallow the SAS cyanide pill you were given back in Korea in '51. The one you carry at all times. The blue Smartie.

SOMETHING called the UK Deed Poll Service reports a trend for couples to merge their surnames when they marry. Thus, when Mr Jones marries Miss Smith, they become Mr and Mrs Jonesmith. It seems the perfect solution for couples when she will not surrender her identity and he is too timid to insist she takes his name. Meet Mr and Mrs Wimpbitch.

HAS anyone else noticed that Santas are getting younger?